Wish Granted
by KzintiKiller
Summary: Jacob gets his fondest wish.  A world without magic, vampires, or Edward Cullen.  The world in which Bella Swan is free to be his soul mate.  Warning:  NOT Team Jacob territory.


**Wish Granted**

AN1: _There's a part of Eclipse that always irritated me more than the rest did; that being Jacob's sickbed rant in chapter 26, and Bella's unblinking whole-hearted acceptance of it. If Meyer is to be believed, then Bella was supposed to be hopelessly in love with Jacob, heart, mind, body, and soul….she was just MORE in love with her..AHEM…__**fiancée**__. Yeah, and I have this lobster farm for sale…in Idaho. After treating Edward so disrespectfully for very nearly an entire book, she couldn't be bothered to, you know, actually defend her relationship with him against Jacob's self-aggrandizing fantasies? That's adding major insult to already serious injury. So, time to get it out of my system. It's interfering with my other writing. This is a little one shot that grants Jacob's wish…an AU world without magic, vampires, or Edward Cullen._

**Quote from Eclipse; Chapter 26 "Ethics" pg. 598-599 **

_"Can I tell you what the worst part is?" he asked hesitantly when I said nothing. "Do you mind? I am going to be good."_

_"Will it help?" I whispered._

_"It might. It couldn't hurt."_

_"What's the worst part, then?"_

_"The worst part is knowing what would have been."_

_"What might have been." I sighed._

_"No." Jacob shook his head. "I'm exactly right for you, Bella. It would have been effortless for us - comfortable, easy as breathing. I was the natural path your life would have taken. . . ." He stared into space for a moment, and I waited. "If the world was the way it was supposed to be, if there were no monsters and no magic . . ."_

_I could see what he saw, and I knew that he was right. If the world was the sane place it was supposed to be, Jacob and I would have been together. And we would have been happy. He was my soul mate in that world - would have been my soul mate still if his claim had not been overshadowed by something stronger, something so strong that it could not exist in a rational world._

**Fic Begins Here…..**

School would have normally let out only an hour ago, but since our teacher had been out sick and the tribal council hadn't been able to get a replacement on short notice, there was no homework for me to do. We'd spent part of the morning goofing off in the classroom before they'd cut us loose. After that me, Quil, and Embry had spent the rest of the day horsing around at Quil's place. He actually had a working X-Box.

Now I was walking home; in the rain. I missed that old dinosaur of a truck, and I couldn't wait to get my Rabbit finished. We needed wheels. I needed wheels. I came in sight of the house to see Harry Clearwater's elderly SUV parked in out driveway. Funny, the Council of Fossils…er, Elders isn't supposed to get together until Friday. What's Harry doing here?

I broke into a trot and reached the front door in a couple of minutes. When I got inside there was this 'end of the world' vibe in the living room. Harry was there, and Sue, his wife, was with him. Dad and Harry looked like they'd just lost their best friend. Sue's eyes were red from crying.

Somehow I knew this was going to suck, majorly.

"What's going on?" I asked nervously.

Dad sighed. "Bella's dead."

I frowned. Bella who?

Dad caught my cluelessness and saved me from saying it out loud. "Charlie's daughter, Isabella," he added. "He bought the truck for her, remember?"

Aw, crap. That sucked. I liked Charlie. He didn't deserve something like this. Chances are his flake of an ex would find a way to blame it on him. Dad never did like her much.

Suddenly I felt a chill. "Was it the truck?"

Please tell me it wasn't something I did? Please tell me that she didn't have an accident in the truck? How could she have an accident in that thing anyway? It could take a head on collision with a tank without blinking.

Dad shook his head, and then looked a little sick himself. "Only indirectly. She was standing next to it in the school parking lot this morning when some idiot kid lost control of his van and spun out on the ice. She was crushed between the van and her driver's side rear fender, and killed instantly."

Talk about mixed emotions. I was relieved that I hadn't botched anything on the truck, but I was still pissed for Charlie.

"How's Charlie doing?"

Dad shook his head and Harry spoke up. "They have him in the hospital, sedated. The EMT's had to tackle him to keep him from shooting the kid who was driving the van. Sue and I went down there to handle some of the arrangements, because Charlie's in no shape to. I called his ex, and she freaked out on me. She and her new man are flying in tomorrow. She's demanding custody of the body, for all the good it will do her. The poor kid is so mangled they'll have to have a closed casket service." He sighed. "Even if Charlie lives through this, having Bella buried somewhere else will surely kill him. Not that Renee would care."

I sighed and shook my head. "That just sucks. Dad, do you want me to handle supper tonight?" He looked too tired to be in the kitchen, even though it was his night.

Sue stood up abruptly. "No, I've got a casserole that I brought over, in your fridge. I'll shove it in the oven now. You go get washed up. Seth and Leah will be here for supper too."

I leaned over and hugged my dad, keeping my face solemn. "Tell Charlie I'm sorry when you talk to him, will you?" But as I headed down the hall towards my room I was grinning. Leah Clearwater was a major babe. Even if she was older than me and attached to Sam "College Boy" Uley, an evening in her company was nothing to be sneered at.

As I turned into my room though, I froze as I heard my dad tell Harry that it was okay if the impound people dropped the truck off at our house. He'd take it back, rather than have Charlie deal with even looking at it. My mind went blank for a moment.

Oh CRAP! Once we have that piece of junk back, I won't be able to rebuild my Rabbit! My life sucks.

The End

AN2: _Yeah, he's the natural course her 'life' would have taken. The only problem is, she'd have been dead before he ever laid eyes on her, and he'd never have known her or cared about her death beyond how it affected his life. He was too greedy and too stupid to see it, and she was too much of a self-serving coward in that scene to point it out to him. Some part of her was still trying to have her cake and eat it too. Bella can hurt Edward again and again and again with this mess she created, but she mustn't ruffle poor Jakiepoo's love sick fur by defending Edward when the Jacob starts spewing manipulative lies and insults about him yet again. Bella's acquiescence to Jacob's words in that scene was as big a betrayal of Edward as the second kiss was. Bigger in fact, because up on the mountain she could still claim to not know what she was doing (though she had to be bordering on brain dead to miss it). However, there in Black's bedroom, she was finally fully 100% aware of what she was doing. As she did in the rest of Eclipse, she simply seemed to care more about the Jacob's feelings than she did about Edward's. In fact, given her thoughts in that scene, it seemed like she didn't even recall that without Edward she'd have been a bloody smear on Tyler Crowley's bumper before she ever met the Dog. That's gratitude for you. Betray the putative love of your life with his worst enemy, and then completely discount your history with the man you're allegedly committed to, all to please yourself and your 'friend'. Yeah, Steph, you really made it clear how much she LOVED Edward there. Not._


End file.
